Clashes Overshadow Ecology Meeting

October 5, 2000

Middle Eas — AMMAN, Jordan -- The biggest conservation conference to be held in the Middle East opened Wednesday, amid continued clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, with a call for equality of resources as a condition for regional peace.

Around 2,500 delegates attending the World Conservation Union Congress in Amman observed a minute's silence for more than 60 victims of the latest clashes before being addressed by Queen Noor, widow of the late King Hussein.

"Environmental security must be viewed by the community of states as a vital global interest. But environmental security is a paradox -- it cannot exist without peaceful cooperation among states, yet that peace itself can be threatened by inequity in resources," she said.

Europe

Solidarity candidate leads protest

WARSAW, Poland -- About 10,000 Poles led by the Solidarity bloc's presidential candidate marched in downtown Warsaw on Wednesday to protest the veto of a bill aimed at giving state-owned apartments and farmland to their current users.

The demonstration was organized by Marian Krzaklewski, who is trailing badly in public opinion polls behind President Aleksander Kwasniewski heading into Sunday's election.

Kwasniewski vetoed the bill after parliament approved it last month.

Germany pledges to fight extremism

DUESSELDORF, Germany -- In a sign of solidarity with the Jewish community, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Wednesday visited a Duesseldorf synagogue that was targeted in a firebomb attack.

Schroeder called the attack, which occurred Monday on the eve of Germany's Unity Day festivities, "a cowardly, underhanded crime," and urged Germans to unite against right-wing extremism.

No one was injured in the attack and damage was minimal. But it upset a community still shaken by an unsolved grenade attack in Duesseldorf in July that wounded 10 recent immigrants, at least six of them Jewish.

Protesting truckers, Spain reach deal

MADRID -- Spanish truckers, cargo handlers and the government on Wednesday reached a near $300 million deal to compensate for high fuel prices, paving the way for the end of protests that brought chaos to major highways.

The government had agreed to a package of measures for truckers and taxi drivers worth about $278.5 million most of which was in tax exemptions and credit lines, Development Minister Francisco Alvarez Cascos said.

The protests followed similar action across Europe as oil prices climbed to 10-year peaks above $30 per barrel.

Africa

U.N. team arrives for diamond inquiry

MONROVIA, Liberia -- A team of United Nations experts has arrived in Liberia on a three-day mission to investigate the country's alleged involvement in gun-running and diamond smuggling in neighboring Sierra Leone.

U.N. officials told reporters late Tuesday that the team, which arrived earlier in the day, would meet government officials, opposition politicians, diplomats and business leaders.

The United States and Britain have accused Liberian President Charles Taylor of orchestrating and personally profiting from Sierra Leone's civil war by facilitating the illegal trade in arms and diamonds.